Funny / Portal

There is a Funny page for Portal 2. Please add examples from that game there, not here.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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• The lyrics to "Still Alive", the song that GLaDOS sings over the end credits. Probably the most passive-aggressive Villain Song ever written.
• The "Fifteen Hundred Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button," which is funny for multiple reasons, but most so because it goes utterly unexplained.
  • Compounded by the completion message:
  "Perfect. Please move quickly to the chamberlock, as the effects of prolonged exposure to the Button are not part of this test."
• GLaDOS goes out of her way to foster quite a bit of appealingly dark Paranoia Fuel in the introductory chambers, such as her elaboration of the Emancipation Grills, "which may, in semi-rare cases, emancipate dental fillings, crowns, tooth enamel, and teeth."
• While introducing the portals: "These intra-dimensional gates have proven to be completely safe. The Device, however, has not. Do not touch the operational end of The Device. Do not look directly at the operational end of The Device. Do not submerge The Device in liquid, even partially. Most importantly, under no circumstances should you- *Static, slows to a stop.*
• "As part of a previously mentioned required test protocol, we can no longer lie to you. When the testing is over, you will be... missed!"
• Appropriately, one of the lines that best establishes and encapsulates GLaDOS' character is also one of her funniest:
  Please note that we have added a consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record, followed by death. Good luck!
• GLaDOS sums up conservation of momentum: "In Layman's Terms, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out."
  • "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..."
• GLaDOS' insults early on in the game are made funnier still by the time and effort it usually requires for the player to realize they've been insulted at all. A good example is her backhanded, importance-deflating praise toward "[subject name here]."
• Similarly, if one manages to look past the Memetic Mutation it has suffered through, "The Cake Is a Lie" is a legitimately funny and clever satire of video game storytelling conventions.
• The Turrets in general with their friendly Auto-Tune voice: "Help." "Uh-oh." "Who are you?" "Please put me down." "Critical Error." "I don't hate you."
  • One of the achievements is using one turret to take out another turret. They say some of the cutest things when they bump into one another. "Excuse me." "Sorry!"
• "Well done, android. The Enrichment Center once again reminds you that Android Hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance."
• "The Enrichment Center would like to remind you that the Weighted Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak. In the event that the Companion Cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice."
  • In a particularly dark bit of comedy even for this game, GLaDOS purposefully twists the knife when the time comes to incinerate the Companion Cube. As if referring to the process as "euthanization" wasn't enough, she says this if you take long enough:
    While it has been a faithful companion, your Companion Cube cannot accompany you through the rest of the test. If it could talk - and the Enrichment Center takes this opportunity to remind you that it cannot - it would tell you to go on without it, because it would rather die in a fire than become a burden to you.
  • And after finishing the part, GlaDOS really likes to turn the knife
    "You euthanized your faithful Companion Cube more quickly than any test subject on record. Congratulations."
  • Of course, for all we know, Chell may be the only subject on record, making this an Overly Narrow Superlative and making it that much sillier.
    • And then the "Lab Rat" comic confirms that thanks to Rattman manipulating the computer system, Chell was indeed the first test subject GLaDOS brought out of suspension.
• GLaDOS' reaction to you evading getting incinerated:
  "What are you doing? Stop it! I - I-I-I-I-I-I-I - Wwwe are pleased that you made it through the final challenge, where we pretended we were going to murder you. We are very very happy for your success. We are throwing a party in honor of your tremendous success. Place the device on the ground, then lie on your stomach with your arms at your sides. A party associate will arrive shortly to collect you for your party. Make no further attempt to leave the testing area. Assume the Party Escort Submission Position, or you will miss the party."
• GLaDOS' feeble efforts to deter the player from advancing toward her chamber, and her growing resignation toward their upcoming face-off.
  You should have gone left before. It's funny, actually, when you think about it. Someday we'll remember this and laugh. And laugh. And laugh. Hooooooh boy.
  Didn't we have some fun, though? Remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and I said "Goodbye!" and you were like "No way!" and then I was all "We pretended we were going to murder you?" That was great...
• Though it can't be said for certain why following line was Dummied Out, it clearly wasn't because it's not funny:
  Look: We're both stuck in this place. I'll use lasers to inscribe a line down the center of the facility, and one half will be where you live, and I'll live in the other half. We won't have to try to kill each other or even talk if we don't feel like it.
• And the final battle with GLaDOS, particularly before you incinerate her Morality Core:
  "Deploying surprise in five, four — *clunk* — time out for a second. That wasn't supposed to happen. Do you see that thing that fell out of me? What is that? It's not the surprise; I've never seen it before. Nevermind. It's a mystery I'll solve later... by myself. Because you'll be dead."
  "Maybe you should marry that thing since you love it so much. Do you want to marry it? WELL I WON'T LET YOU! How does that feel?"
  "That thing is probably some kind of raw sewage container. Go ahead and rub your face all over it."
  "I'll tell you what that thing isn't: It isn't yours. So leave it alone."
  "Have I lied to you? I mean, in this room? Trust me, leave that thing alone."
  "You are kidding me. Did you just stuff that [Aperture Science Thing-We-Don't-Know-What-It-Does into an Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator? That has got to be the dumbest thing that — whoa, whoa, whoaaa, WHOAAAAA..."
  "That thing you burned up isn't important to me. It's the fluid catalytic cracking unit. It made shoes for orphans. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero."
  • Note that when GLaDOS calls throwing the core into the incinerator "the dumbest thing [she's] ever seen", her monitor changes to the logo of Black Mesa. And shortly afterward, when the effects of the Morality Core's destruction occur, the monitor changes to a pile of screws.^note Because you're screwed.
• And after the core was burned wasn't too bad, either.
  "Don't believe me? Here, I'll put you on. Hellooo! THAT'S YOU! That's how dumb you sound!"
  [warping groan] "You think you're doing some damage? Two plus two is…" [pulsing static] "… ten. IN BASE FOUR. I'm fine!"
• The Curiosity Core. "What's that? What is that? Ooo, that thing has numbers on it! Ewww, what's wrong with your legs? Is that a gun? Where are you taking me? Oh hey, you're the lady from the test! Hi! Do you smell something burning?" Yes, little core, I do.
• The Knowledge Core's recipe fore cake has some rather out there ingredients:
  1 (18.25-ounce) package chocolate cake mix, 1 can prepared coconut–pecan frosting, 3/4 cup vegetable oil, 4 large eggs, 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, 3/4 cup butter or margarine, 1 2/3 cup granulated sugar, 2 cups all-purpose flour; Don't forget garnishes such as Fish-shaped crackers, Fish-shaped candies, Fish-shaped solid waste, Fish-shaped dirt, Fish-shaped ethylbenzene, Pull-and-peel licorice, Fish-shaped volatile organic compounds and sediment-shaped sediment, Candy-coated peanut butter pieces (shaped like fish), 1 cup lemon juice, Alpha resins, Unsaturated polyester resin, Fiberglass surface resins and volatile malted milk impoundments, 9 large egg yolks, 12 medium geosynthetic membranes, 1 cup granulated sugar, an entry called: "How to Kill Someone with Your Bare Hands", 2 cups rhubarb, sliced, 2/3 cups granulated rhubarb, 1 tbsp. all-purpose rhubarb, 1 tsp. grated orange rhubarb, 3 tbsp. rhubarb, on fire, 1 large rhubarb, 1 cross borehole electromagnetic imaging rhubarb, 2 tbsp. rhubarb juice, Adjustable aluminum head positioner, Slaughter electric needle injector, Cordless electric needle injector, Injector needle driver, Injector needle gun, Cranial caps
• The whole fight can be funny, minus the part where you incinerate GLaDOS' Morality Core and she goes completely insane and tries to flood the arena with neurotoxin.
  • Even then, the dry redundancy with which she describes the circumstances behind the Morality Core's installation, amplified further by her flat, robotic delivery, lends that moment a good bit of comedy regardless of how chilling it otherwise is.
    GLaDOS: It was a morality core they installed after I flooded the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin to make me stop flooding the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin. So get comfortable, while I warm up the neurotoxin emitters.
• "There was even going to be a party for you. A big party. That all your friends were invited to. I invited your best friend the Companion Cube. Of course, he couldn't come because you murdered him. All your other friends couldn't come either because you don't have any other friends, because of how unlikable you are. It says so right here in your personnel file. "Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner, whose passing shall not be mourned." Shall not be mourned. That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says you were adopted, so that's funny too."
• "You're not a scientist! You're not a doctor! You're not even a full-time employee!"
• Brick Joke: The cake recipe. (Which, incidentally, is funny even on its own if you pay attention to it.)
  • Another: "Thank you for assuming the Party Escort Submission Position."
• Seeing the platform in the final test chamber lead to a pit of fire is so outrageous and unexpected it becomes hilarious.
• During the credits, when "Still Alive" reaches the line "Look at me still talking...", an ASCII rendering of GLaDOS appears on the screen. "Look at me", indeed

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